Writing For Games

Week 1

This week we discussed whether games need a narrative in order to be considered enjoyable (Brook, 2015). Traditionally games where created by programmers and contained no story (Brook, 2015). Today game developers are expected to contain a more diverse set of skills, including script writing (Brook, 2015). Enjoyable games need a balance between game play, narrative, and design (Brook, 2015). Although not all enjoyable games have a narrative, for example Minecraft relies on its players to set their own goals (e.g. collect wood in order to build a house) and the game will punish the player if they don’t achieve their goals (e.g. monsters will kill them at night-time) (Brook, 2015). Minecraft is a highly successful game, on the 25th of February 2014, Markus Persson announced that Minecraft reached over 100 million registered users and people are still continuing to register today (Makuch, 2014).

1) Make a list of any existing experience you have in game design, or of any skills you think are relevant to game design (for example, writing fiction, drawing, experience with design software and/or programming)

Figure 1: Kongregate_logo (Source: Thanos, 2010).

I have been playing games ever since I was a child. I would often explore the internet for free online games; http://www.kongregate.com/ is an example of one of the websites I visited often. One of the games on the website allowed us to create our own levels, which our friends could play in real time. I also had a fascination with stick figure animations, to the point where I downloaded a program and started animating my own short clips with stick figures. I used to watch stick figure animations on SFDT.COM, but sadly it was taken down due to more malware found on the site (Stick Figure Death Theatre, 2015). This encouraged me to download a program and start animating my own short clips with stick figures. Also I used to draw games for my brothers to play in, but then moved onto creating games in RPG maker. I have also written fiction novels and enjoy drawing.

Figure 2: SFDT (Source: Abe, 2013).

2) Identify a list of documents, images, programs or other material you have produced and/or which you think are relevant to game design. Keep this list, as it will be useful to bring in some of this material on appropriate weeks.

I am currently in my 3rd year of my Bachelor of Creative Industries Degree, Majoring in Games Design and Management at Edith Cowan University.

I am competent with using:

Zbrush

Maya

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Premier

Flash

Microsoft word

Microsoft excel

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Project

I am currently enrolled in game level design and as part of this unit; I will be learning how to use Unity. By utilising these programs I have created a character Marquette, 3D models on Maya and zBrush, game design documents, short films, and manipulated images in Photoshop. Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fantTWoyP5Y to view a short cinematic sequence of an incredible machine I made and animated in 3D Visualisation.

3) What role do you think you think you would be best at, and/or would like to enter into, in the game design process?

As mentioned previously, I am doing Creative Industries Degree, Majoring in Games Design and Management at Edith Cowan University. This unique combination of majors will allow me to take on a business role in the games design process, more specifically being a Project Manager.

4) Do you think certain skills or attitudes towards writing and games might prevent someone from being a good game designer?

As a class we explored what skills or attitudes makes a bad game designer this encompassed;

not creative

not flexible

bad communication

controlling

not able to take criticism

luck of feedback

focus on deadlines only

doesn’t create aesthetically pleasing game environments

I than asked myself what makes a good designer? Gamedesignschool.com (2015) tried to answer this question by coming up with ten qualities that make a good game designer, these qualities included enjoys video games, efficient and problem solver.

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One thought on “Week 1”

A very well written out answer. I do believe some of the question’s answers could have done with some dot point listing, such as as in question 2 where a list of programs are mentioned. It is much easier to read a dot point list then a line of text.